Family planning as 'liberation' : the ambiguities of 'emancipation from biology' in Keralam

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Abstract

In the early debates on the desirability of artificial birth control
in Malayalee society, artificial birth control was often opposed on the
grounds that it undercut some of the crucial conditions for the ushering
in of full-fledged modernity, which was frequently conceived of in
entirely Developmentalist terms. The concern expressed was mainly
that it was incompatible with the project of modern self-building, tied
as it was to the attainment of a high degree of sexual self- control.
However, by the 1960s, such fears had vanished or become marginal,
and now the reverse appeared true, i.e., Family Planning appeared to be
part and parcel of disciplined, abstemious and prudent domesticity. The
paper tries to explore some aspects of this transformation of associations.
Some of the conditions that made this transformation possible had been
already taking shape before the full-scale arrival of the Family Planning
Programme into Keralam. These included changes in key notions like
the nature and social function of sexual desire and activity, modern
conjugal marriage and the forces sustaining it, and so on. The Family
Planning propaganda of mid 20th century was bolstered, directly or
indirectly, by these ongoing elaborations. Also important was the Family
Planning propaganda’s active furthering of the emergent forms of power
in modern Malayalee society that were already defining and guiding its
modernisation, such as the newer form of patriarchy in which (modern
educated) men design and oversee the process of ‘Women’s Liberation’,
the new elitism of modern knowledge that marginalises all other ways
of knowing and sharply differentiates ‘mental’ work and ‘physical’ labour,
the passivising power of reformism which authorises non- reciprocal
relations between the reformers and the objects of reform. The overall
effort of the paper is to highlight the ambiguities of ‘liberation’ in 20th
century Keralam and to problematise the tradition/modernity binary
that too often organises the writing of the history of 20th century
Malayalee society.
Key words: natural birth-control, artificial birth control, modern,
liberation, modern conjugality, domesticity, sexual self discipline